Identive and WPG to share x-rays via NFC

The two firms are to provide doctors, dentists and other healthcare professionals with a way to easily transfer digital medical images to the relevant exam room.

IDENTIVE: Using NFC to make sure images relate to the correct patient

NFC and secure ID specialist Identive and technology provider WPG Americas are working together to enable data from digital medical imaging devices to be transferred to multiple exam room monitors.

The new solution combines Identive NFC tags and readers with software developed by WPG to enable images from a digital x-ray camera to be associated with patient records.

Medical practitioners simply affix an NFC tag to each digital radiography camera and add an Identive SCL3711 NFC reader to the computer in each exam room. The tag on the camera is then tapped to the NFC reader and WPG’s software reconfigures the wireless communication between the camera and local computer to transmit the x-ray images from the camera and associate them with the appropriate patient record.

“Digital radiography cameras are rapidly replacing traditional x-ray systems in medical offices of all sizes, because they expose patients to less radiation, provide higher quality images and greatly simplify record keeping,” say the partners.

“By making it easier to transfer x-ray images from digital sensors to computer viewing monitors in multiple exam rooms, we can help doctors, dentists and other healthcare providers extend the value of this expensive equipment while ensuring the images are associated with the correct patient,” explains WPG’s Dave Bowers.

“In the healthcare market there are dozens of areas that will benefit from the use of NFC, from making treatment information available to managing patient records,” says Dr Manfred Mueller, managing director of Identive’s identity infrastructure division. “Partnering with WPG Americas on this NFC transfer solution allowed us to benefit from their extensive understanding of the medical office environment and their strong engineering expertise.”